


got to have a little bit of faith in everything you know

by bloodredcherries



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-07 16:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17368991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodredcherries/pseuds/bloodredcherries
Summary: Elizabeth’s college essays had thrown her for a loop.





	got to have a little bit of faith in everything you know

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Merit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merit/gifts).



“Serial killers? Imprisoned in a convent? Helping with a murder trial? Oh Betty, can’t you write about something nice?” Alice questioned her daughter in desperation, as she skimmed some of the essays that Elizabeth had already typed up, cursing her youngest’s proclivity to being a perfectionist who excelled in doing things in the extreme advance. “There _has_ to be something nice you can write about,” she said, desperately running through the tragic-comedy that was Betty’s life in her mind, hope springing eternal that there was _something_ there, literally _anything_ that Elizabeth could write about that wasn’t a never ending web of increasing despair.

 

“Should I write about how my mother is now going to be my mother-in-law?” Betty queried, her tone sweet, and Alice bit back a groan. “I mean, because, your wedding _was_ nice,” she said. “I was also relieved that FP encouraged your return to sanity.”

 

“Don’t be so ridiculous, Elizabeth,” she said, her tone dismissive, and she sat beside Betty on her daughter’s bed. “First of all, _Gladys_ is going to be your mother in law,” she reminded her. “I just happen to be married to Jughead’s father. Second of all, if you think that being a _near child bride_ is an appropriate topic of conversation with prospective colleges--”

 

Betty beamed. The joyful expression on her face made Alice pale.

 

“I could write about how Jughead and I rescued his sister from a chop shop!”

 

“Don’t you even dare, Elizabeth,” she hissed. “That is an equally inappropriate topic, what happened to Forsythia is not _fodder_ for your college application essays.” Alice pursed her lips, and crossed her arms, thoroughly vexed by Elizabeth’s train of thought. “I just don’t want you to go off to school with a _reputation_ right from the start,” she said, and she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, before becoming rather quite interested in her fingernails. The rings that FP had given her gleamed up at her, and she drew in a deep breath. “When I was applying to colleges,” she told her, making every effort to focus on the conversation at hand, and not dwell on memories that only served to depress her, “I wrote about Charles.”

 

“You did?” Betty’s tone was quiet, and she glanced briefly at her, before returning to fiddle with her rings. “What did you write about? What happened?”

 

“I wrote about how the girl from the wrong side of the tracks found herself pregnant, and did the right thing,” Alice recounted, as she blinked away tears. “It seemed like the best of a lot of _shitty_ options, Elizabeth. I had this giant gap to explain away and I _thought_ about just lying and saying I was in juvenile detention, but…I couldn’t. So, I wrote about the baby.”

 

“It was so _painful_ for me to write about him, Betty, you _have_ to understand,” she continued. “No one wanted to talk about what I had been through, your _father_ that bastard he wanted to just pretend that I had gone away and refreshed myself. I think he told people I had a nervous breakdown.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I needed to tell _someone_ what had happened, so that people would just understand.”

 

“Mom--”

 

“It was horrible,” she said, and she balled her hands into fists, and tried to remain calm. She was the parent, here, not the child, and Elizabeth had done far too much parenting of her over the past few years. “I was _that girl_ during all of my college interviews, everyone asked me these _invasive_ questions, I had to relive the _worst_ time of my _entire_ life.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t want that for you, Elizabeth. I don’t want you to write about something that will _hurt_ you to talk about, that will make this more painful for you than it has to be.”

 

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Betty replied, and Alice allowed her to pull her into a hug, and she pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I just...if I _don’t_ write about these things, then, what do I have _to_ write about? And there doesn’t seem much of a point in _not_ writing about them, I mean, it’s not like I can really hide anything that happened to us.”

 

Alice cringed. She supposed that Betty had a point. It was true that there was no hiding the tragicomic series of disasters that had been a part of Betty’s life as of late. If Elizabeth was younger, she would have changed both their names. She would have let FP adopt Betty, like he’d offered to, but that she had had to refuse, solely based on the fact that their children were dating. Engaged. Whatever they were. It would have been inappropriate, and limiting, and Alice knew that, no matter how much she wished that she didn’t.

 

“I’m sorry,” she insisted. “I didn’t _know_ what the farm really was, Elizabeth, I should have listened to you, but I was confused, and scared, and brainwashed, and--”

 

“Mom,” Betty interjected, and she squeezed her hands. “It’s fine, Mom, Polly mislead you, when you were scared, and, that’s not your fault. She took advantage of you, Mom.”

 

“And now FP has to _suffer_ for it,” she muttered, her tone dark. “Forced to help me take care of _my_ daughter’s mistakes,” she rambled. “You should write about that: the special case of your sister-niece and brother-nephew. Doesn’t it figure? I _begged_ her to put those babies up for adoption, and, now--”  


“I don’t think that he minds,” she pointed out, her tone gentle. Alice raised a brow. “Mom, really, I think that he _likes_ them. He was actually _disappointed_ when you said that their names had to be changed.”

 

“Well, they had to be,” she said, and she sighed. “I guess it wouldn’t make much sense to write about homecoming games, and dances in the gym, and being a River Vixen, would it?”

 

Alice had spent her entire adult life as a mother doing everything possible to ensure that both of her daughters were able to live good lives, and, the fact that it had blown up spectacularly in her face was almost too much for her to bear. Polly was in a locked psychiatric ward while she awaited trial, and, well, when it had become clear that she was going to be stuck with the grandchildren and that she was the ex-wife and mother of two of Riverdale’s most infamous debacles, she had done something she had sworn she would never do: turned tail and run. FP had offered to put a ring on her finger, and it seemed easier on all of them to just escape, rather than try to fight past the evils that had befallen the town.

 

A fresh start had been just what they’d needed, she’d unilaterally decided, and everyone else had fallen in line. What else could they have done? She was the only one with money and the means for a career, and there was no way she was holding out for a return to a saner, more reasonable, Riverdale, not with the children to consider. It might have been too late for Polly, or for Betty and Jughead, but Alice was not going to fail the others, even if she thought that all three would end up resenting her.

 

Therefore, Elizabeth’s college essays had thrown her for a loop.

 

“You really don’t think he resents me?” The question had escaped before Alice could process that it was escaping, and she pursed her lips together, as she focused on a photograph that Betty had posted on the wall of herself and Archibald, when they were roughly Jellybean’s age. She sighed. No one had heard from him, either, not that Alice had really asked. She knew that FP and Fred still kept in touch, though, and the last she’d heard, Fred had moved to Chicago, to be with Mary. Being around Riverdale had been too much for him too, she supposed.

 

“No, Mom, I don’t,” Betty said. “I think that...I think that getting the chance to experience parenting with you, even if it is in a less than ideal situation, and even if it is unbelievably unorthodox...I think that that makes him really happy, just like you agreeing to marry him, made him happy.”

 

“Maybe you’re right,” she sighed, and she shook her head. “I just wish…”

 

“I know, Mom,” she murmured, and she pulled Alice into a hug. “Mom, I know you do.”

 

“You really want my help?”

 

“Of course,” she said. “You’re the best writer I know. And I’m not just saying that because you’re my mom.”

  



End file.
